Do Hyatt Points Expire?

If you’ve ever paid for a hotel stay with points, it can feel like finding money in your pocket. It’s a great feeling to be able to “pay” for that stay without dipping into your bank account.

On the other hand, if you’ve ever had a big stash of points expire, you know the opposite is true. It can feel like you just lost your wallet.

Fortunately, you don’t necessarily have to stay at Hyatt hotels regularly to keep your points active. Here’s everything you need to know about World of Hyatt’s policies, so you can keep your Hyatt points from expiring.

If you haven’t planned a vacation in a while, your hotel points might be “out of sight, out of mind.” If that’s your mindset, your points will likely expire before you even think to check. While some rewards programs have points that are “evergreen” and never expire — for example, Best Western — most points expire if your account is inactive for a period of time, typically one to two years.

So, do Hyatt points expire? The short answer is yes, but there are several easy ways to keep them from expiring.

In the World of Hyatt program, if your account is inactive for 24 consecutive months, all of the points in your account will be forfeited. In other words, your points will expire. And once your points expire, there’s no way to get them back.

However, even if your points expire, your account will remain open. Note that this change was implemented in the past five years. Prior to July 1, 2017, if your points expired due to inactivity, your account was also automatically closed. These days, even if you lose your points, you get to keep your account.

Unfortunately, there’s no “when do Hyatt points expire” button on the Hyatt site, but there’s an easy way to figure it out.

Instead, check the Past Activity section of your Hyatt account. Look at the date of your last activity, then add 24 months.

There are a variety of ways to keep your valuable Hyatt points from expiring. Any of these actions will reset the clock on your points expiration date:

• Stay at a Hyatt property. Your stay can be either a paid stay or an award stay, and it can be at any Hyatt brand, including participating hotel partners such as M Life and Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Keep in mind that if points activity is your goal, you need to book directly with Hyatt and not with an online travel agency like Expedia.

• Send or receive Hyatt points. Because members can transfer or receive Hyatt points for free, this can be an easy way to reset your points expiration clock. Note that you can only send or receive points once every 30 days.

• Transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards® points. If you’ve got a card that earns Chase Ultimate Rewards®, you can transfer your credit card points into your Hyatt account. This can provide excellent value because Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be redeemed for 1 to 1.5 cents (depending on the card) when you use them to book in the travel portal, but NerdWallet values Hyatt points at 1.9 cents each when you use them to book award stays.

• Convert Hyatt points to airline miles. While this is typically not a good value, it is an option if you’re in a bind. If you choose to do this, you can turn your Hyatt points into airline miles on a variety of different airlines, including American, Delta, Southwest and United. However, this is not a good use of your points based on the value of airline miles compared to Hyatt points.

• Purchase points. Purchasing points is another option that’s usually not a great value, but it is a way to reset that expiration clock. You can purchase Hyatt points in 1,000 point increments for $24 (each point costs 2.4 cents). Hyatt sometimes runs promotions that offer bonus points for buying a certain number of points, and these can bring the cost per point down to where it’s a good deal to buy.

• Rent a car with Avis. You’ll earn 500 bonus points for each qualifying rental. The way it works is that you book directly with Avis and add both the Avis Worldwide Discount number K817700 and your World of Hyatt membership number to your reservation.

If you often forget about your points, it might be a good idea to set a reminder on your phone or write one on your calendar a couple of months before your points expiration date.

It always pays to stay on top of points expiration dates. Losing a big chunk of points could mean losing hundreds of dollars worth of an award stay at Hyatt. Now that you know how to avoid losing your points, make sure you complete one of the qualifying activities at least every 24 months to avoid expiration.

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